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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27593936">A Good Life</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458'>Bluewolf458</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Sentinel (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:55:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,091</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27593936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Post canon; Blair goes to the Police Academy three months after the events of TSbyBS</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jim Ellison &amp; Blair Sandburg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Good Life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally written for the Saturday Chat concrit (600 word limit) and expanded</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A Good Life</p><p>by Bluewolf</p><p>Blair caught the billfold Jim tossed to him. "This is, uh... what is this? This is a detective badge. What's going on? I don't deserve this."</p><p>Simon reached out and snatched the billfold from him. "No, you don't - at least not until you go to the Police Academy and complete firearms training. And if you do, Detective Ellison is looking for a permanent, official partner."</p><p>Blair looked from Simon to Jim, and noted the affectionate, expectant look on Jim's face. He couldn't resist the tease. "I'm still not cutting my hair." But he knew that Jim knew he didn't mean it. There was nothing he wanted more than to be Jim's permanent, official partner, and if he had to get his hair cut for the short time it would take him to get firearms training it didn't matter. He could grow his hair again if he wanted to, after he became an official part of Major Crime. But he didn't think he would. He had been thinking quite seriously about cutting his hair for some weeks - one reason he had, quite often recently, been wearing it in a ponytail.</p><p>***</p><p>The next Academy entrance date was some three months in the future. More than enough time for anyone who had seen the 'fraud' press conference to have forgotten it. Blair's psychology classes told him that 'news', unless it was in some way directly involving someone, tended to be forgotten almost immediately. Even as he accepted the offer of the badge, Blair knew that his claim of 'fraud' had already been forgotten by almost everyone outside the PD and the relative handful of people, students and professors, at Rainier who knew him. Even the lawyers who routinely defended some of the career criminals were unlikely to remember, though they might check up on the background of any witnesses to crimes their clients had perpetrated. But there were ways around that – especially since at his press conference he had described it as ‘a good bit of fiction’.</p><p>***</p><p>Blair spent the next three months reading books on police procedure (finding he knew most of it) and law.</p><p>Eventually the day came when he had to report to the police academy in Seattle. He had chosen to commute - he could drive the distance involved in little more than an hour, and Jim had seen to it that Blair's Volvo was totally roadworthy.</p><p>He arrived a full half hour early, finding that, early though he was, four others were also already there. He joined the line to report in; when it came to his turn and he gave his name, the officer signing them in said, "Ah - Captain Archer wants to see you. It's the second door along that corridor."</p><p>"Yes, sir."</p><p>The door was open; as he reached it, Blair saw an older man sitting at a desk near the back of the room. Blair knocked on the open door and went in. The name plate on the desk said H. Thomas.</p><p>Ah - so Captain Archer had a male secretary. Interesting, when so many secretaries were female.</p><p>Thomas looked at him as he crossed to the desk.</p><p>"Blair Sandburg," he said. "The officer taking our names said Captain Archer wants to see me."</p><p>"Yes." Thomas got up and went to a door behind and to one side of him, knocked and went in. He emerged moments later, leaving the door open, and said, "Go in."</p><p>Blair crossed to the door, gave the door a polite knock and went in, hoping that Captain Archer wasn't simply going to tell him he wasn't wanted there.</p><p>But Archer was smiling. "Welcome to Seattle, Mr. Sandburg."</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>"Simon Banks is an old friend of mine, and I've had a long discussion with him regarding you; he told me what happened, and he's sworn me to secrecy regarding Detective Ellison's gifts. I won't be passing that information on to anyone. All that needs to be said is that you've spent some years observing one of the Cascade detectives while gathering information on the police force for a doctoral dissertation, but that you found the work of the police so interesting that you decided to join the police instead of continuing with an academic career.</p><p>"He assures me that you know everything we would be teaching you because of your years riding with Detective Ellison. Unfortunately, our rules mean I can't just accept that - I would like you to test out of everything but firearms. Will that be a problem?"</p><p>Blair shook his head. "No, sir. I would be happy to sit the tests."</p><p>Archer nodded to a table in a corner of the room. "I'll give you all the final test papers. Work through them; as you finish each one give it to me, and I'll grade it."</p><p>"Yes, sir." He took the booklets Archer handed him, crossed to the table, took a pen from his backpack and started to work through the tests.</p><p>***</p><p>Some six hours later he handed over the last one. Archer looked through it quickly, and nodded. "If anything, Simon underestimated what you know.</p><p>"Now, I have a proposition for you. I understand from Simon that you were a lecturer at Rainier. One of our instructors is off sick. Would you be interested in teaching one of his classes? It would involve two hours a week, and we would pay you $1000 a month. Your firearms training would be fitted in separately from everyone else on the days you are here."</p><p>Blair's jaw dropped.</p><p>"I'll give you Lt. Metcalfe's lecture notes. I expect you to compile your own, but they'll give you a guide."</p><p>"I'll do it," Blair said.</p><p>***</p><p>Blair's classes did so well that two hours a week became ten inside a year, even after Metcalfe returned to work. To allow for Blair’s commuting time and his work with Cascade PD, Archer fitted those hours into the mornings (although it did mean an early start for Blair)  and when Jim took early retirement a year or two later the pair moved to Seattle and the job became full time.</p><p>Once he was there, Jim, too, was offered a job at the Police Academy, replacing one of the instructors who, for family reasons, was moving to Portland.</p><p>While they weren't actually working together, they were working in the same place (and Jim didn’t have to use his senses), still in law enforcement, and still sharing a house.</p><p>And although they missed Cascade and their friends there, life, for both, was good.</p>
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